I Don't Do Domestic
by Winter Sapphire
Summary: Or so he says. Of course, domestics for Time Lords tend to be a little out of the ordinary anyway. A series of disconnected stories featuring the Doctor, Rose, and their everyday shenanigans.
1. The Waiting Game

This whole thing started when I found a nice, long lists of suggested things to do when you're bored, and a lot of them reminded me of the kind of shenanigans the Doctor and Rose could've gotten up to between episodes. I decided that, with a bit of tweaking, they could make for some good, fun, and perhaps (sometimes) mildly romantic stories.

This one wasn't actually on the list, mind, but the idea kept pressing at the back of my brain, and I figured... well, my first foray into the Doctor Who fandom should probably be simple. I can build up.

So, here I am, diving headfirst into a new fandom. And, well... _geronimo_.

**Disclaimer:** I'm American, so the mere thought of me ever owning Doctor Who is kind of... well... ridiculous.

* * *

_The Waiting Game_

The Doctor sat stiffly in his chair, drumming the fingers of one hand distractedly against the arm rest as he leaned his chin in the other. He half-stared, half-glowered at his companion as she slouched against the edge of a couch a few feet away, pretending to read a book (he just _knew_ she was pretending; a page hadn't been turned for at least ten minutes now) and humming a song he didn't recognize under her breath.

The Doctor cleared his throat, and Rose Tyler glanced up with a smirk.

"What's wrong, Doctor? Slitheen got your tongue?"

Her expression was all innocence, complete with wide, doe-eyed blinking, but the Doctor knew better. He saw how her tongue just barely poked out from between her teeth, how her eyes glittered with mischief.

Rose, he decided, was going to be the death of him someday. Completely and indefinitely. He had no idea how she even convinced him to do these things. He was pretty sure he had never agreed to such insane ideas with any of his previous companions.

But the Doctor wasn't one to back out of bets, and ten quid was on the line. Twenty-four hours of saying and doing nothing couldn't be _too_ hard, could it?

The Doctor felt his leg fidget involuntarily. Well.

"Y'know," Rose began conversationally, looking up to the ceiling, "I never really understood Shakespeare in school. I mean, all my teachers talked about him like he was some kinda genius, but he couldn't even write properly! All he did was make up words!"

The Doctor swallowed thickly and let out a slow breath. No way was she going to trick him into reacting. He was a nine hundred-year-old _Time Lord_. There was no way he was going to lose a game of time to twenty-year-old _human_.

"By the way, forgot t' tell you. Threw out the rest of the marmalade an' bananas yesterday. Had to make room for some pears I found at that market in 2876. They were so fresh and juicy lookin' that I couldn't help but buy 'em when I saw 'em."

The Doctor gaped at her, a sort of squeaking sound escaping unbidden from his mouth. Rose was kidding, right? She had to be kidding. He gave her a look that begged her to tell him that she was _just kidding_, but she ignored it with the mastery of the Gabauldrons -- two metre tall aliens from the Ulio 7 Quadrant that walked tall and ignored the presence of any creature larger than them as if they just didn't exist.

"Oh!" Rose clapped her hands and widened her eyes, a grin spreading over her face. "Also, Mum called last week when we were runnin' from those weird-looking jellyfish things an' said she's decided to go travelin' with us! So we should probably go an' pick her up sometime soon."

The Doctor narrowed his eyes at her dubiously, and Rose tilted her head in thought as she laughed. "Yeah, you're right. _I_ don't even believe that one."

The Doctor let out a frustrated huff, slowly beginning to count backwards from 86,400 -- no, wait... His brow furrowed in thought as he tried to figure out how much time had already passed. 84,546... 84,545...

"Twenty-three an' a half more to go, Doctor," Rose taunted with that cheeky grin of hers. "You're never gonna make it. This ten quid's _mine_."

And, despite his bubbling frustration and that niggling feeling of restlessness easing into the back of his mind, the Doctor found himself grinning right back. He settled himself comfortably back in the arm chair, reminded himself to make sure there were no _actual_ pears in the kitchen once this was over, and he waited.

84,478...


	2. Burst My Bubble

So this idea came to me when I remembered blowing and popping bubbles in my childhood. I miss doing that, I should get some stuff for it. Anyway, I couldn't get this idea out of my head. And here it is! I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. :)

Btw, because I'm not entirely sure it's as obvious to everyone else as it was to me when I was writing it, the continuous eruption of the bubbles around them is what's keeping them from sinking; it's how it sustains their weight. The TARDIS took it by surprise, which is why she leans.

That said, _allons-y_!

**Disclaimer**: Don't own it, I just like playing in its wonderful world.

* * *

_Burst My Bubble_

The TARDIS tilted precariously, which wasn't exactly a new experience for either Rose or the Doctor. Still, it rarely happened _after_ the TARDIS had parked.

"What?" The Doctor blinked furiously as he looped his arm around a coral column to keep himself from sliding with the gentle tilt of his ship. He whipped out his glasses with his free hand and perched them at the edge of his nose, peering down at the display screen as Gallifreyan symbols danced across it. "Well, that's different."

"Doctor?"

He glanced up then, peering over the brim of his glasses to where Rose was pressing herself against the rail circling the console for support. She motioned dramatically with the hand that _wasn't_ desperately clutching onto the metal bars behind her. "I could use some help! Where are we?"

"Oh, right. Sorry." The Doctor moved carefully, gripping onto the console as he inched towards her. "Not quite sure where we are, actually. I told the TARDIS to choose a random location, and well... I guess she did." He reached out, wiggling his fingers at her.

"What'd she do--" she cut herself off as she reached for his hand, grunting in frustration as their fingers merely brushed. "What'd she do, land on the ocean planet of Bora Bora or somethin'?"

"Oh, come on," the Doctor rolled his eyes as he stretched himself a little further, grasping Rose by the wrist. He hoisted her up next to him, wrapping an arm around her waist to make sure she didn't just go tumbling back again. "Just because I say there's a planet called Barcelona doesn't mean _every_ famous Earth city is somewhere up in space. Besides, it's not quite like water. It's more solid -- we're not sinking, just leaning. Maybe similar to... jelly? Or a slightly melted marshmallow? Oooh!" He looked at her excitedly, his eyebrows practically shooting up into his hair. "Imagine that, Rose! A planet made entirely of marshmallow! That would be brilliant!"

"Uh huh." Her voice sounded bored, but she was still grinning up at him with that special, beaming Rose smile that the Doctor liked to think she saved specifically for him.

"Okay, fine," he conceded, twisting himself around Rose to press a few buttons. "Maybe not _that_ brilliant. We'd probably get stuck in it." He flipped a switch, and the TARDIS doors opened. He beamed back at her, that sly and quick wit dancing through his eyes. "Well, only one way to find out."

"What?" Rose widened her eyes at him, at the bright-yet-dull light filtering in from the mysterious, unknown world outside. She could practically hear the mathematical equations buzzing around his head. She laughed. "You've gone completely mad."

"Oh, yes," he agreed, his grin widening as he tightened his grip. "It's a brave new world, Rose Tyler."

"Geronimo," she quipped in response, and, just like that, they jumped.

* * * *

When Rose dared to open her eyes, the world had exploded around them. Quite literally. She blinked at the rainbow-tinted, clear spheres floating above and around her head. On instinct she reached out to touch them -- only to find her arms pinned underneath the man who had, somehow, landed on top of her.

"Oi," she pushed at him. "Gerroff."

The Doctor rolled off to the side, laughing when more of the spheres floated up into the sky as he hit the ground. "Oh, of course! Typhoon! I should have known."

"Typhoon?" Rose repeated, pushing herself into a sitting position. She watched in wonderment as more of the objects danced into the air. "What're they?"

"They're, well.... technically speaking, they're--" The Doctor reached up, poking one with his pinky finger. It popped into a spray of colour before falling back to the ground, "--bubbles. Look at the ground you're sitting on."

Rose blinked, peering down. She stifled a gasp as she did, turning herself over to rest on her knees. "Oh my god--"

The bubbles kept erupting from the ground around them, a continuous, never-ending stream of spheres that swam with colours that Rose hadn't even known existed. She followed them up with her eyes until they popped on their own accord, sending a sprinkling of otherworldly rainbows flittering back from where they had left to be reabsorbed.

And the ground itself -- well, it was barely even a ground. What Rose had thought had been a sort of spongy surface upon impact was actually more of -- as the Doctor had suggested aboard the TARDIS -- a jelly substance, not quite sticky, but molding to her touch. What amazed her, however, was not the fact that the earth wasn't even _earth_, but that the ground was transparent.

She could see right through it, at the space that surrounded it. It almost seemed as though there wasn't an atmosphere at all, but there was a gentle shimmer in the air around them that indicated something was keeping it breathable. The rainbows that were in the smaller bubbles paled in comparison to the massive sphere they came from; it seemed to catch every infinitesimal speck of light and intensify it into something grand and beautiful.

Rose let out a slow breath, letting the sight wash over her.

"Rose Tyler," the Doctor grinned as he hauled himself to his feet, holding his hand out for her to grasp. She took it gratefully, pulling herself up alongside him. "Welcome to Typhoon, the greatest achievement that humankind will ever make, whether they know it or not." Rose glanced at him.

"What do you mean, make? This isn't a planet?"

"Well, traditionally, no," he said, reaching out and poking a bubble floating in front of his face. "It wasn't born like most planets are. It was an experiment your lot did around the 70s of the 48th century. You tried to make a planet out of nothing, and this is what you got. An orb of complex molecular structures that came out looking like a giant soap bubble."

"It's beautiful," Rose commented in a whisper, and the Doctor turned his gaze towards her wonderingly.

"I'm glad _you_ think so," he told her, smiling sadly. "The people who created this place considered it a failure because they couldn't get it to cultivate actual _earth_. They abandoned it to rot, and never even realized what they had created." The Doctor poked another bubble, and they both watched as the remnants drifted back to the ground. "They made something that constantly replenished what it had on its own. No prompting, no programming..." He held out his hand, catching a bubble deftly in his palm. "And they just left it. So much potential."

"Hey." Rose squeezed the hand she was still holding, catching his attention again. "It's not wasted while we're here, right? So long as people like us can still enjoy it, then it's okay."

Rose reached up quickly to pop a bubble directly in front of his face, and the Doctor blinked in surprise as the colours splashed across his nose.

"Now you've got multi-coloured freckles," she grinned cheekily at him, and he grinned back before doing the exact same thing to a sphere beside her ear. Rose let out a short yelp, stumbling backwards. The bubbles erupted around them, and through them she met the Doctor's challenging look with one of her own. "Oh, you are _on_."

He pounced, she ran, the sky filled with rainbows, and the TARDIS hummed contently through it all.


	3. Scratch 'N Lap

I got to thinking the other day... well, I'm not sure what I got to thinking, but this is-- OH WAIT. I remember now. My dad and I got to talking about my old dog, Patch, who was the nicest, sweetest, fluffiest dog in the world before he died. I guess I was feeling nostalgic, so this was the result! It was actually pretty quick to write, surprisingly. And the light fluff was totally unexpected; I wasn't planning on writing it like that.

But who am I to deny the muses their way? I hope you guys enjoy, and thanks to all readers, whether you've reviewed or not, who've happened upon this little set of fics so far! :) You guys inspire me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Doctor Who. But I do own 26 of the episodes on iTunes now. Best $55 I've ever spent.

* * *

_Scratch 'N Lap_

There was that strange slurping sound again. The Doctor frowned, pushing himself out from underneath the TARDIS's central console and sitting up, scratching the side of his face curiously.

The TARDIS was quiet at the moment, since Rose had been exhausted and had decided to go to bed a few hours earlier. The Doctor had never really understood what it was about humans that made them need more sleep than most other species, but they did. Terribly inconvenient, but at least it gave him time to do some much-needed tinkering with his ship.

Which is what he _had_ been doing, until that noise had started -- and there it was again! It sounded like somebody with a milkshake (probably banana) was nosing their way around somewhere in the room, and now that he was out from under the console the Doctor swore he heard a gentle scraping-like sound, too.

"What _is_ that?" he asked himself, forehead crinkling in confusion as he pressed the tip of his tongue against the edge of his teeth. The Doctor quickly pushed himself to his feet, spinning the TARDIS's screen around to look at it.

"What, have you got something blocking your bypass systems again? Indigestion? Stomach cramps?" He stroked the edge of the screen comfortingly as a series of numbers and symbols danced across it. He shook his head. "These readings aren't helping. They aren't _telling_ me anything. What's _wrong_?" The screen flashed again, and the Doctor's eyes widened. "What? What d'you mean, _three_? There's only me and Ro--"

Something bumped gently into the back of his legs, and the Doctor froze as he realized _exactly_ what that strange slurping-and-scraping sound was.

"Oh. Oh, no. You have _got_ to be kidding me." He pressed his fingers between his eyes, shutting them tightly for a moment before risking a glance down. Please let him be wrong. Just this once, let him be wrong.

The Doctor opened his eyes, and he let out an amused sigh. "Of course."

* * * *

Rose frowned in distaste as something stirred her from her sleep. She _had_ been having a lovely dream, she was sure, but the ends of it were quickly falling out of her grasp and were only leaving her with that content aftermath. Which wouldn't be so bad, really, but _something_ had woken her up in the first place. She should still be enjoying her dream.

Rose grunted, burying her face into her pillow, cuddling it to her in an effort to tell whatever it was to shove off and let her sleep.

Apparently it didn't get the hint, because the next thing she knew there was something _cold_ and _wet_ and _slimy_ trailing across her neck. Rose shrieked, jumping straight up and swatting at the air behind her with her pillow. The Doctor was grinning at her, the pillow squashed up against the side of his face as he held the tongue-lapping, tail-wagging, noseless puppy in his hands.

"Funny thing, these Barcelona dogs," he said, scratching her under the chin. Her tail wagged faster. "Since they've got no nose, the only way they've got to smell is by licking. Like a snake," he explained. "And Meiske here, well, she decided she wanted to know what Rose Tyler smelled like. Who was I to refuse?"

Rose blinked drearily, sleep still pushing at the corners of her mind even though she was awake. "You... you snuck into my room to get a dog to _lick_ me awake?" She paused, shaking her head. Then something else struck her. "Wait a minute, _Meiske_? You named it?"

"Named _her_, Rose," the Doctor defended as he plopped himself and the puppy down on the bed next to her. "I couldn't just call her 'you, dog'! _Meiske_. It's Hylion for 'loyal,' you know. But that's not the point. There's an important question you're missing here."

"There's a question?" Rose blinked innocently, but the Doctor knew her too well to fall for that. She knew it, he knew it, and, judging by the way she tilted her head to the side, Meiske knew it too. The Doctor raised an eyebrow questioningly as the puppy licked his hand.

"Are you really going to make me ask?"

Rose faltered, looking sheepish. "Well, she was cute, an' she was all alone nosing her way through a trashbin. Was I supposed to just _leave_ her?"

"Technically, she was tonguing her way through a trashbin," the Doctor said lightly, before looking her apologetically in the eye. "Rose, we can't have a dog on board the TARDIS."

"Why not?" Rose demanded, feeling a flash of anger. This is why she had snuck the dog on in the first place. He was unreasonable. "She won't cause trouble! I can take care of her. We can't just go and plop her back on Barcelona like she's nothin'!"

"I'm sorry," the Doctor murmured, placing the hand that wasn't holding Meiske still at the crook of her elbow. "But you know that the life we live isn't really conducive to having a pet. We saw how that went with Mickey."

"Oi!" She elbowed him sharply, but she couldn't keep her tongue from sticking itself out of the corner of her mouth. She knew he was right -- he usually was -- but it still wasn't fair.

The Doctor smiled gently, reaching out and smoothing down her hair. Rose felt her eyes close on their own accord, having forgotten that she had been sleeping until recently. She probably looked a right mess, but the feel of the Doctor's fingers threading through her hair made her not even care. And here he was, probably not even realizing what he was doing.

"I'm not going to just abandon her," the Doctor promised. "I'll find her a good home. Or we can, together, if you want. Is that okay?"

Rose 'mmm'ed in agreement, leaning into his hand as it moved to cup her cheek. She opened her eyes to find his locked on hers, shining in that rare way they did every now and again. For a moment she didn't even allow herself to breath. Or maybe she couldn't, with the way her heart was hammering so loudly in her chest. The Doctor's thumb traced the curve of her jaw once, slowly, before he pulled back, cradling Meiske to his chest.

"Go back to sleep. I'll let you know when we touch back down on Barcelona again, all right?"

"Right," Rose said, and the Doctor smiled once more before slipping out the room and closing the door with a 'click.' Rose groaned softly, throwing herself and her pillow back down on the bed, and she breathed in deeply.

Sometimes, that man drove her crazy.

* * * *

Back in the console room, the Doctor rested his head in a hand as Meiske stared at him knowingly, tongue lapping at the air with a kind of innocent ferocity.

"You and your lot," he sighed dramatically, ruffling the hair on top of her head. "Tasting the emotions in the air. Far too clever, you are. I should be glad you can only communicate within your own species."

Meiske blinked, and the Doctor lifted his head as he started setting coordinates. "Right. Next stop, Barcelona. Again." He pointed at her accusingly. "And don't look at me like that. It's rude."

The Doctor pressed a button, and the central column sprung to life.


End file.
